Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander

---

---

---

Sculpture in Bronze

Bronze¹ was the preferred material of the sculptors who devised the daring new styles in free-standing sculpture in the fifth century, although marble was also popular. Creating bronze statues², which were cast in molds made from clay models, required a particularly well-equipped workshop with furnaces, tools, and foundry workers skilled in metallurgy. Because sculptors and artists labored with their hands, aristocrats regarded them as workmen of low social status, and only the most famous ones, like Pheidias, could move in high society. Properly prepared bronze had the tensile strength to allow outstretched poses of arms and legs, which could not be done in marble without supports. (Hence the intrusive tree trunks and other such supporting members introduced in the marble copies made in Roman times of Greek statues in bronze. These Roman copies of the sort commonly seen in modern museums are often the only surviving examples of the originals.)